


No Heart For Me Like Yours

by crazyjane



Series: Shinbyeong [5]
Category: EXO (Band), SHINee, VIXX
Genre: Dancers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Musicians, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-11 01:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16465988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyjane/pseuds/crazyjane
Summary: In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours.In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.- Maya Angelou*****Sometimes, saving people means you have to let them fall.Taemin knows that, but it always hurts when he has to let it happen. When his task is to bear witness. It feels utterly wrong - he was created to bring people back from the very darkest nights of their souls, to catch them before they are lost forever. But watching them fall, even when he knows it’s the only way they will ever climb up out of the dark - that tears him apart every time.Without Kai, Taemin thinks he would inevitably fall, himself, and never stop.





	No Heart For Me Like Yours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tkbjrn (cakejerry)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakejerry/gifts).
  * Inspired by [My Stolen Heart, My Crooked Fate](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16362659) by [crazyjane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyjane/pseuds/crazyjane). 



In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours.  
In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.  
Maya Angelou  
*****

 

Sometimes, saving people means you have to let them fall. 

Taemin knows that, but it always hurts when he has to let it happen. When his task is to bear witness. It feels utterly wrong - he was created to bring people back from the very darkest nights of their souls, to catch them before they are lost forever. It can be as easy as the right smile at the right time or a blown kiss, as hard as talking them down from the roof of a building. It can be a brief tryst or weeks of cherishing and coaxing them to be open to hope again. Hours of holding them, listening to their pain. He takes it all in and gives them back themselves. But watching them fall, even when he knows it’s the only way they will ever climb up out of the dark - that tears him apart every time. 

Without Kai, Taemin thinks he would inevitably fall, himself, and never stop.

The taxi driver who brings him home has a photo of his wife and children taped to the dashboard, and chatters about how he is blessed to have such a family. More than once, he touches the photo, absently, without looking at it. As always, the echoes behind the words tell Taemin the real story. The driver frets about money, is behind on house and car repayments, had to transfer his son to a cheaper public high school. His wife now takes in mending and ironing to help pay the bills. He drives as many shifts as possible, even when he’s so tired he can barely focus on the road. A second job seems unavoidable, even if it would take him further from his loved ones. His distress is real, but it isn’t despair, and so Taemin’s eyes stay clear. He’s not needed here. Not tonight.

When he lets himself into their apartment, it’s dark, and cold, and oh, so empty. He expected it would be - Kai’s been on tour for weeks now - still, it hurts, because tonight, Taemin can’t get the memory out of his mind of watching a beautiful, reckless boy throw himself headlong into the abyss, and he needs Kai to be with him. He crawls into bed, pulls the covers around him and buries his face in Kai’s pillow, breathing him in. 

It feels good to be home, at last. Too much travel, always rushing from one engagement to the next. Falling asleep in cars, in buses, backstage curled up in a corner. So many blandly inoffensive hotel rooms with expensive sheets and too much space in the bed. Kai loves performing, he lives for the dancing and the rush he gets when his eyes change and he reaches out to brush against so many souls at once. Best of all is feeling the inspiration that suddenly blooms in his wake, so many scattered throughout the arenas with their light-stick constellations. He knows they’ll go away from here and write their stories, draw manhwa and edit videos, even compose their own music and dances. Unlike some of his group, Kai is always happy to read or watch what the fans create. He has a dozen different pseudonyms on multiple platforms, uses them to leave praise and encouragement and a little inspiration here and there. 

There’s always something uncomfortable about being away for too long, though. It’s not loneliness, exactly; it’s the feeling that half of him is just out of reach. The unexpected cancellation of an interview is exactly what he needs. Taemin won’t be expecting him until tomorrow, and Kai can’t wait to see his face break into that joyful smile reserved for him alone. But, as he unlocks the door and steps into the dark apartment, all he feels is pain. Taemin’s pain. Taemin, mourning.

Kai doesn’t bother with lights or greetings, drops his bags in the hallway and almost runs to the bedroom. Curled on his side, Taemin looks small and fragile. Kai doesn’t stop, just climbs into bed beside him, setting aside the pillow, and pulls his love into his arms.

_Taemin. Taeminnie._

Kai’s voice in his mind, bathing him in warmth as it always does. But Kai is far away, too far for them to be anything other than a reassuring presence to each other, and Taemin knows it can only be his own wishful thinking.

_I’m here. I’m really here._

It feels real, even down to the sensation of being held, rocked, of a kiss on his forehead. It’s cruel. He’s already hurting so much. 

_Taeminnie, saranghae, saranghae._

Their touchstone, always. In every life, in the language of their first homeland. Anchoring them to each other. Hardly daring to hope, Taemin lets himself open up, feels Kai flow into him. He sobs, once, cups his hand around the back of Kai’s neck, and kisses him, pours his grief into his lover’s mouth. 

Kai is no stranger to kisses; they’re part of what he does. Who he _is _. Feather-light on the hair to reassure and encourage without disturbing their work. Chaste pressure when they say thank you, goodbye. Brush of his lips over closed, dreaming eyes. Waking them to passion, answering a desperate need. Final, aching farewell for the ones who give up. He’s kissed so many over the long, long years, and he remembers them all.__

____

__But Taemin, Taemin kisses him like it’s always the first time, the last time, the only time they’ll ever have. He knows they have forever; they both know it. Born again and again to find each other, love each other, remember who they are and what they are for everyone who needs them. Tied together so tightly there’s never even the slightest danger that one could, somehow, slip away. None of that matters when Taemin kisses him, because for Kai, it’s an echo of that moment when their souls first wove themselves around and through each other, and he is whole again. He takes in Taemin’s pain, gives back warmth and love and the diamond-hard certainty that he will always be there to catch him. And Taemin takes in his tears, gives him back hope and a love that always pulls him back from his own despair._ _

When he feels Taemin finally calming, Kai makes his kisses softer, slower. _Tell me_ , he says. _Show me._

Still kissing, Taemin puts his hands over Kai’s closed eyes. Lets him see.

Sitting at home, unaccountably restless. He knows there’s somewhere he needs to be tonight, but his path isn’t clear to him yet. Turning his phone end over end, taking pictures of himself; a hand, the curve of his jaw, his eye. That’s when it comes to him, as it always does, not an outright instruction but an impulse impossible to ignore. He focuses the phone camera on his eyes, summoning the same intensity to his stare that he brings to the stage. Opens the app that’s sat unused for over a month now. Idle since the blond-haired child, not even nineteen, who went looking for an adventure because he no longer knew how to feel. Who almost placed himself in the hands of a predator because he didn’t care if he lived or died. Taemin had put himself between them and taken the boy to safety, kissed him once, held him, let him go with the knowledge that he was loved. Now, tonight, he needs to go back into that world. He uploads the photo of his eyes, puts out an offer. Swipes through the responses until a punch like an icepick makes him double over.

There’s nothing in the message except for details of where, when, what, but the echoes are terrible. This one will be bad - it’s been a long time since Taemin’s felt such turmoil, such a drive towards self-destruction. It never occurs to him to hesitate; if this boy can be saved, Taemin can bear anything. 

He gets to the club early enough that the space isn’t completely jammed yet. Taking up a space against a wall, he watches the ebb and flow, feels how nerves give way to drunkenness and lust, hears the voices of long-partnered lovers and strangers. When he sees the boy, he almost cries. Tall, well-muscled, moving with an arrogance that, to Taemin, screams vulnerability. The boy is dressed to display himself, but covers his face with a black mouth mask. He looks around impatiently, heads to the bar and starts to drink steadily. Taemin straightens up, takes a step in his direction, but finds himself held in place. No, he cries silently, uselessly. His task has changed.

The boy dances (and how monstrous, that it should be Taemin’s own song playing), and eyes are turning to him.

_He was beautiful, Kai. Warm, like you, full of love, but twisted up inside. Addicted to danger. He hated himself. And I couldn’t stop it._

Kai feels the moment Taemin finally starts to weep, and his own eyes fill with tears. He kisses even more deeply, leaning his face against Taemin’s to keep his love’s hands in place.

_I’m here. I’m here. Let it go, love. Give it to me._

_It was him, the same one. I knew what he would do, but I couldn’t stop him this time. He circled that boy like a shark. Played on his weakness. Hurt him, so badly. The things he did ... I had to watch. I saw everything. Felt everything. I wanted to kill him._

It’s not the first time he’s felt like this. Some leave only wreckage behind them, broken people who may never mend. Even after so long, Taemin still doesn’t understand why they are allowed to live. He’s seen lesser evil punished, cut out ruthlessly from the world. Sometimes his own hands itch for the power to do the same. But his task isn’t vengeance, it’s rescue. 

No one was saved tonight.

Taemin’s thoughts fragment into chaos, but Kai’s head swims with anguish, with horror, with the memory of a boy used and thrown away like a broken doll. Breaking the kiss at last, he takes his lover’s hands, holds them flat against his chest. Lets his eyes change, sees Taemin respond in kind. The last barrier comes down; they are naked now, soul to soul, and together they dissolve the pain until all that remains is a lingering heartache that will never truly fade.

They were made for each other, from the beginning, muse and saviour, designed to be each other’s home. Kai had loved Taemin as soon as he’d seen him, the boy full of life who ignored the outraged cries of his parents as he climbed a tree to see over the wall into the secluded garden where Kai sat combing her hair. Their first kiss, shared in secret, awakened them to their true selves and their appointed tasks. And that has been the way of things ever since; a handful of years to be innocent, before fate tangles them together and they take up their roles once more. Falling in love, again and again. 

___Only this_ , thinks Kai. _Only the love makes us able to keep going_. He caresses Taemin’s face.

_Only this_ , whispers Taemin into his mind. _Love me, Kai. Come into me._

‘Always,’ Kai murmurs as he kisses Taemin again, rises above him. ‘Forever.’

 

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the expanded _Shinbyeong_ 'verse! 
> 
> Previous stories have hinted at the central idea, but this is the first time it's been said 'out loud'. I hope you like it, and will stick around for the rest of the series.
> 
> The dancing boy is, of course, Lee Hongbin from VIXX.
> 
> And the song is 'Sexuality', by Taemin.
> 
> Oceans of love, etc., to vixxbitch, without whom there would _be_ no 'verse.


End file.
